X-Mas Graff

I didn't share this at the time, but when I brewed my 2016 X-Mas Ale (see I brewed a peppermint (X-Mas) ale) ... I had a little too much for the fermentor and moved about 3/4 of a gallon to a glass jug and fermented it.

It has been sitting around since then waiting for me to make Graf (or is it Graff?)

What is Graf (or maybe it is Graff)?

According to the Dark Tower Wiki ...

Graf is a strong hard cider or apple-based beer widely consumed in In-World. The specifics of the beverage are not mentioned (except to say that some varieties of graf are weak while others are eye-wateringly strong).

Kegging and Bottling

Last weekend I didn't brew, but I did have a pretty busy Sunday.

I bottled and soured my Gruntled Sour Weiße. I also kegged my Falling Leaves Harvest Saison.

For Some reason, this picture says "Gruntled" to me

You may remember that I mentioned that I would be souring my Gruntled Sour Weiße by simply adding Lactic Acid rather than using souring bacteria. Part of the reason I made such a small batch was that I wasn't sure how good the lactic acid souring would be. Billy from The Homebrew Academy did the same thing for a Gose (see Gose Homebrew Recipe). He didn't really give me the idea, but he did remind me of the idea. He also was kind enough to post an amount for me to start with.

Resurrecting the Wetta Blonde

My father-in-law is a full-blooded Mexican, and gave my mother-in-law the nickname "Huera", which is apparently Mexican slang for white girl or light-haired girl.

It usually sounds like "Wetta" to my gringo ears, especially when people saying it have been drinking (or maybe the relevant part is that I have been drinking).

Regardless ....

One night, not too long after I started home-brewing, I was sharing beers with my in-laws. Huera went on and on about how she really liked the Classic American Blonde Ale. Of course even at this early stage of my brewing experience, I knew that I would rather do recipes a bit more personalized than that one. I told her that I would make a blonde ale recipe and name the beer after her. I told her I was going to spell her name with a W, although neither my wife nor Huera remembered I had said it months later when I introduced the Wetta Blonde.

The Problem with Mr. Beer

I am a fan of Mr. Beer.  I have made no secret of the fact that I started home-brewing after receiving a Mr. Beer kit from my sister for Christmas of 2008. I got hooked so quickly that my wife got me a second fermentor for my next birthday which was less than a month after brewing my first batch of beer.

If you look back in the SheppyBrew Brewing Calendar for 2009 and 2010, you will see a crazy amount of brewing, all done in Mr. Beer fermentors. By my count, over those first two years, I did 62 batches of beer at 2.4 gallons a pop. I started with the super simple Mr. Beer recipes. I moved to other extracts with steeping grains and then to partial mashes. Finally, I stepped up to all-grain brewing . All of this in the Mr. Beer fermentors.

Ello Poppet and Root Beer

On Friday I got a "Contact Us" email from a new fan of the blog inviting me over for his second ever home brew-day. Well, he did not ACTUALLY say he was a fan of the blog, I made that assumption because he did not say anything negative. That, and I am a complete legend in my own mind. Everyone who read the blog must be a fan. Right?

I will try not to let it go to my head when he asks me for my autograph. (That was a joke ... I will TOTALLY let it go to my head)

Getting that email reminded me that I have not brewed in a long time. It happens some times. Things get busy and you just don't get a chance to brew.

I knew that I would have a challenge getting time this weekend as well, but I came up with a scheme (sounded good at the time) that I could wake up at 4 and get a whole all-grain brew day before 10.

Drinking the Wetta Berry

SheppyBrew's Raspberry Wetta Berry has finished carbonating and I have now had a few.

In case you need a refresher, I blogged about making Wetta Berry in Wetta Berry Mr. Beer Batch.

I blogged about adding raspberry puree to it in Raspberry Wetta Berry.

I blogged about Kegging and Bottling Wetta Berry in Kegging and Bottling Wetta Berry.

It is ... well ... it tastes like it has a lot of raspberry in it. In my opinion, it has too much raspberry in it. Even the Beer Model said "Maybe" when I asked her if it had too much raspberry in it.

Kegging and Bottling Wetta Berry

Tonight, I finally kegged up my Raspberry Wetta Berry "beer".

I blogged about brewing it with Wetta Berry Mr. Beer Batch.

I blogged about adding raspberry puree to it with Raspberry Wetta Berry.

I didn't take an original gravity reading, but based on other Mr. Beer batches, I figure it was about 1.045. It finished at about 1.010. This means that without the raspberry puree, the ABV would have been right around 4.4%. The raspberry puree doesn't add much sugar, so this is almost certainly under 5%. I would guess around 4.7% ABV.

Tonight, I mixed in 4.5 ounces of sugar into the keg and bottled 6 liter bottles, 3 bombers, and 4 12-ounce bottles. The rest (about half I would say) stayed in the keg.

Raspberry Wetta Berry

Last Friday while waiting to begin SheppyQuest Lite with my son, I brewed up a quick double batch of that last of my Mr. Beer HME / UME combos (see Wetta Berry Mr. Beer Batch).

This afternoon, I stopped by my LHBS and picked up some raspberry puree. Then, tonight while the kids were reading to me, I transferred the beer from the two Mr. Beer fermentors onto the puree.

I think perhaps the three pound can of raspberry puree is a bit much for this amount of beer. The color came out ruby red. It reminded me a bunch of the color of New Belgium's Frambozen. Perhaps you remember (although you probably don't watch my blog closely enough to have even read it), In Frambozen I wrote:

"It does have an amazing ruby red color that I would love to recreate in one of my beers."

It looks like now I have recreated the color. I suppose this means the raspberry flavor will be too much for me. I might end up giving away most of this beer.

I'll be letting this sit on the raspberries for another couple of weeks. I will most likely let you know how the Beer Model and I like it.

Wetta Berry Mr. Beer Batch

I brewed today.

I have had some cans of Mr. Beer HME and UME (hopped malt extract and unhopped malt extract) for quite some time. In fact I am pretty sure I have not bought my own since Peter from Mr. Beer gave me some after the 2010 GABF. A couple of the "use by" dates on these cans are coming up.

So, today I had enough free time to whip up a batch of beer (a Mr. Beer batch, not a "real" batch) and decided to go ahead and use up these cans of extract.

It has been a LONG time since I've done a straight Mr. Beer batch of beer, but decided I didn't want to go through the effort of coming up with anything, so my recipe is simple.

Drinking Psychotically

You may recall that not too long ago I brewed a beer that I called "Psychotically Dark and Bitter IDA" (see Psycho Dark and Bitter on this blog). It was a beer that I brewed to use up some Mr. Beer ingredients. (see the recipe at SheppyBrew.com).

This weekend, I poured myself a couple of bottles.

Regardless whether you call this a black IPA, a Cascadian dark, American style black or India Dark Ale, SheppyBrew's Psychotically Dark and Bitter Ale is wonderfully dark and hoppy and pleasant to drink.

Root Beer and Pretzels

We have had the 2nd part of a Mr. Root Beer kit for quite some time without a whole lot of interest from the kids about making it. In fact, I think the last time we did make root beer, I think was back in June of 2009.

But, for some reason, recently Tyler has been asking to make root beer, and this past Sunday, he and I finally did.

Psycho Dark and Bitter

I brewed another batch of beer last night. I call this recipe Psychotically Dark and Bitter IDA (follow the link to see the recipe). It is another batch of beer designed to use up Mr. Beer ingredients that were given to me (ie free!) last year at GABF.

Of course, India Dark Ale (IDA) is what I like to call the Black IPA / Cascadian Dark Ale / American-Style India Black Ale / whatever-else-people-call-it. I just hate the Cascadian Dark Ale name simply because it implies that is a regional beer style exclusively created in and for the Pacific Northwest. I like (and have used) the name "Black IPA", but calling a beer "Black" and "Pale Ale" just seems too oxymoronish. I like "American-Style India Black Ale", but it seems a bit long for the name of a style. Here are some of the articles in this blog in which I have mentioned the style: "Black IPA / IDA", "Cascadian Dark Ale", "Stone Soup IDA".

Brewing Wetta Blonde with Mr. Beer

Until tonight, I have not brewed a Mr. Beer batch of beer in awhile. According to my records, I brewed "Eric's Red" on 12/21/2010 (see Brewing Eric's Red). I kept telling myself that I'm going to brew something with the HME's / UME's that I got Peter after GABF, but I just have not done it (until tonight).

Looking through ingredients in stock at the SheppyBrew nano-brewery, I had some Mr. Beer Classic American Blonde Ale HME and some Mr. Beer Pale Export UME. I also had some East Kent Goldings hops, some SafeAle American Ale (US05), and some honey. It just so happens that those ingredients are all I need to make my Wetta Blonde Ale. So, I decided to brew up some Wetta Blonde.

SNB Brewing Blog

SNB Brewing

Recently, I discovered that another one of my Mr. Beer forum virtual brewing buddies has a blog. Actually, I didn't so much discover it. He told me about it.

I like it when my virtual brewing friends have web-sites or blogs because when they keep them up to date, I can see what they are up to. I don't pay attention to the forums as much as I used to and even when I did, I missed a majority of what was going on. I do pay attention to various blogs, though. If you are on the "blogs I read" section of my blog, I read all your posts within a day or two (usually) of the time the rss feed updates the information over there. I have several other blogs that I follow through rss feeds and catch most of what goes on in those blogs.

Brewing Eric's Red

Tonight, I am brewing up Eric's Red Ale. I changed the recipe from the last few times to use up my Mr. Beer inventory. I did not feel like coming up with a new name or a new label, so I am just calling it Eric's Red. I have to formulate an all-grain version of the recipe, anyway, so none of the extract versions of the beer will be used again (probably).

For quite awhile, I considered Eric's Red my "flagship" beer, but I have not brewed it since January. After this batch it is still tied as the most often brewed beer in my lineup. I still enjoy red beers. Quarter Life Crisis has just sort of taken over as my red of choice. 


 
This brew day will be very quick and easy compared to anything I have done recently. Even the Wetta Blonde I did a few batches ago was slightly more complicated than this Eric's Red. I am just doing a 15 minute boil with one hop addition. Then, cool down the wort, transfer to a fermenter, and pitch the yeast. Simple quick and easy.


 
Should be drinking Eric's Red in a month and a half. Yum!



I snuck this video into the blog just for the fun of it (facebook readers will have to go http://blog.ericshepard.com/2010/12/brewing-erics-red.html to see the video)

Homebrew Fool

So, this is sort of exciting: esheppy (me) is Mr. Beer's "Brewer of the Month" for November.

EricG (Mr. Beer's Señor Brewmaster and BJCP Certified Beer Judge and member of the American Brewer's Guild Alumnus and the moderator of the Mr. Beer discussion forums) wrote in his email to me, "I would personally like to thank you for all you contribute to the forum-- from your solid advice and insightful questions to your great sense of humor and passion for brewing good beer. Of course, it's nice to see that you're almost always trying something new, whether it be using grain or yeast starters! When you share these experiments, it always adds to the conversation... Anyways, the community surely wouldn't be the same without you."

When I got to EricG's email, I was shocked. Most of the Brewer's of the Month have been just completely impressive people when it come to their brewing knowledge and what great insights they share on a consistent basis. And, there are several people on the forum who I could think of off the top of my head who I think are more deserving of the honor than I. I do agree with EricG that I ask good questions and my readily apparent addiction to home brewing certainly might indicate a "passion for brewing". I do experiment quite a bit, and usually share these experiences (mostly to get advice from the experts). But, honestly, I did not expect to ever be Brewer of the Month, and certainly not this month.

If you are interested in reading the writeup, you can see it by following this link.

In other SheppyBrew news: Mr. Beer has recently updated the stats on most of their HME's and UME's. Mr. Beer's Señor Brewmaster actually told me that he had been recalculating for months and one of my posts (one of my insightful questions mentioned above) gave him the motivation to get it all done and updated. The updates for the most part went pretty far in making all my recipes much more balanced than they were before. Of course, it also pushed a couple of my more recent beers (ones I was making a concerted effort on making balanced) toward the hoppy/bitter side, so we will have to see how those turn out. Most notably, my newest version of Dragon Spit is pretty far to the hoppy side of balanced. Of course, it is still in the fermenter, so it will be awhile before I find out what it tastes like. The original version was very malty and needed bitterness, but I might have gone too far. Stay tuned for updates.

My Rocktoberfest Ale was a pretty big hit. I finished the last of them while watching game 2 of the world series. I plan to make this one of my seasonal beers and hope to have some on hand every October whether or not the Rockies are in the playoffs. The only changes I think I want for this beer are to make it a bit lighter on the color and get the carbonation up to a respectable level. Not sure exactly what I did wrong, but carbonation on this beer was pretty low and me being one of those American Beer Drinkers, I like my carbonation.

I actually tried one of my X-Mas Ales in October. I am well pleased with this beer. This is will be another seasonal regular for SheppyBrew. I think probably based on the taste test, next year I will not have to start brewing the beer so early in the year. I guess I'll have to see how these taste in December to know for sure. Other than possibly decreasing the conditioning time, I cannot think of a needed change to this beer. I do have to be extra careful on the pour of this one so that the cherries in the bottom of the bottle don't get mixed in. I wonder if I might want to try to filter some of those out from the bottling bucket next year. I wonder if I'll remember that a year from now.

I recently bottled Tommy Hawk APA. The taste test going into the bottle tells me that I added way too many flavoring hops. My intention was to recreate New Belgium Brewery's Mighty Arrow APA, but I certainly overdid the Amarillo and Cascade hops in the 20 minute boil range. Live and learn I guess (or should I say brew and learn?) I've already made changes to my recipe, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to fit this one into the schedule again.

SheppyBrew Update

Most of you know that I have been brewing my own beer this year. My wonderful, generous sister is to thank as she is the one who got me a Mr. Beer kit for Christmas. To be honest, I got the kit and figured I would brew maybe a couple batches and probably go months before using it again. The only home-brew I had ever tried was a stout back in college, and I really did not like it. I'm not sure if it was a bad beer, or if I was simply so used to mass-produced watered down beer that I could not appreciate good beer at the time. But, based on that experience, I really did not think I would like home-brewed beer that much.

Boy, was I wrong. Of course, the nice thing about brewing your own beer is that you control what kind of beer you get. It takes a bit of trial and error, and you will most likely make mistakes (eg: Girly Berry; Maple Brown), but if you follow the process and stick to what you like, most likely you will end up with great beers (eg: Eric's Red; Wetta Blonde; Phat & Tyred; etc ... etc ... etc ... )

So far, if I just counted right, I have brewed 21 batches of beer. Those 21 batches have given me 16 distinctly different beers. Currently, I have 8 different types of SheppyBrew beers in my beer fridge which are theoretically drinkable right now, and 2 batches my fermentors which can be drinkable in the next couple of weeks. My batch sizes are smaller than most "real" home-brewers as the Mr. Beer fermentors hold just over 2 gallons, whereas most home-brewers do 5 gallon batches. Basically, every batch is a case of 12oz beers. But, even with my small - size batches, I have brewed over 45 gallons of beer this year, which I think is alot. Federal law allows and individual to home-brew 100 gallons a year and a household to brew 200 gallons a year. From my beer forums, I know some people who go over the 200 gallons a year limit (shhhh.... don't tell the feds) , so at least I'm not as obsessed as I could be.

My signature beer is Eric's Red, a deep- redish- amber beer with a heavenly malty, almost sweet flavor with very low bitterness. The thick creamy head on this beer is absolutely amazing. Even though this is my favorite (or at least in the top 2), it is also the one I have tinkered with the most. I have made 4 batches of Eric's Red, and each one has been a bit different. I have one that I have to bottle this weekend, which I am sure will be the best one yet. I also really like Phat & Tyred, which started out as a Fat Tire clone, but which I modified enough that it really isn't a clone anymore. It depends on my mood which one I like better and any particular day.

Out of the people with whom I have shared my beers, my Blonde beers have been the favorites. My very first beer was a simple beer recipe that came with the Christmas gift, Classic American Blonde Ale, which was a huge hit with everyone I shared it with. It was, of course, this beer that made me fall in love with the hobby, so obviously, I liked it as well, but it is not the kind of beer I want associated with SheppyBrew. It was a good beer, but not a great beer, so I followed up on a beer that beer drinkers could appreciate in which I added more body and hop flavor, Wetta Blonde, and it has been a big hit as well. Not only do others like it, but I think it is a great beer too.

My most recent beer is one I call Rocktoberfest Ale (in honor of the Rockies who just made the playoffs for only the third time in their history). This one is a deep-amber, almost dark brown with modest bitterness. It had a little higher alcohol content than most of my beers, and its dark malty flavor with the extra little alcohol kick serves well to warm you up on a cold October night while watching the baseball playoffs. Its carbonation is pretty low, which I will have to fix next year, but it is also a great beer. It is considerably darker than your typical oktoberfest lager, but I did not make it for the typical oktoberfest drinker.

So, out of my 16 different styles, I would say at least 4 will be part of my regular lineup (Eric's Red, Phat & Tyred Ale, Wetta Blonde, and Dragon Spit). I plan to always have bottles of each of these ready to drink (NOTE to self: Need to make some more Dragon Spit). At least 4 will definitely be repeated seasonable brews (Whisky Wife Wheat, Gringo Cervesa,X-Mas Ale, Rocktoberfest Ale). Whisky Wife Wheat has the potential of making the regular lineup. It is too soon to tell on Vanilla Porter and Tommy Hawk APA, but I need an APA and a Porter or Stout in the mix, so their chances are pretty good if I like them at all.

And of course, I will always be looking to try new recipes (if I can ever fit them into the schedule having just committed to at least 8 and probably 10 beers to regularly brew). I know I am going to try a DoppleBock and an Irish Stout.

If you made it this far in the blog entry without getting totally bored, you might be interested to see the artwork for my beer labels. You can check them out by going to my public facebook page.

Mr. Root Beer Part 2

So, this past weekend, we tried the Mr. Root Beer that we mixed up the previous weekend.

It was good. It was really really good. If you like root beer, you would really like this stuff. I think even if you do not like the mass-produced-soda-company root beers, you may like this one. It is much more flavorful. It is just better than most root beers.

I cannot get Connor to try it. He tells me he does not like root beer. The boy has never tasted root beer. Connor quite frequently says he does not like various foods. Usually, this is before he tries the food. I sort of want him to try the root beer, but not enough to try real hard to convince him. Root beer is, after all, mostly sugar water.

Tyler says he like the Root Beer, really has no point of reference as to how good it is compared to other root beers. And, he is not nearly as excited about drinking the root beer as I thought he would be. He says he prefers Sprite (can you imagine that?)

But, we shared with some people we had over on Saturday for grilled brats and burgers. Everyone who tried it thought it was just awesome. So, the root beer was a success. Too bad the boys do not quite appreciate what good stuff they made. But, maybe that is a good thing. As I mentioned, root beer is mostly sugar water.

Mr. RootBeer

My boys and I mixed up some Mr. Root Beer this weekend. My dad sent us a Mr. Root Beer kit awhile back. We tried to make our first batch back then, but somehow one of the kids (Connor would be my guess) misplaced the actual Root Beer Flavoring bottle. We did not discover this until it was time to add it, and we ended up trying to make it without the root beer flavor. It turned out pretty bad. Basically, root beer without the extract is white sugar and brown sugar water. As it turns out, the extract is the worst part to lose, because the kit came with 2 of everything EXCEPT the extract bottle (one bottle of extract is good for 2 batches).

Since then, I ordered a refill, and we finally got around to "brewing" another root beer batch, this time with the actual Root Beer Flavoring. Carbonation involves a little wine yeast for a couple of days (which means our root beer will have a little alcohol in it, but not much I think). Today, we felt the plastic bottles and decided that they were hard enough to indicate a good amount of carbonation, so we put them in the fridge.

We will probably chill them until this weekend and see how home-made Root Beer (with actual Root Beer Flavoring) tastes.

I'll keep you informed.

More Beer

I got my first shipment from Mr. Beer today. Actually, it is my second shipment, as my sister had the first one sent as a Christmas Gift. My first batch of beer has been carbonating for almost a week, which means it is almost ready to put in the fridge to condition. I'll probably try my first taste of it on Super Bowl Sunday, which will be three weeks since I started brewing the beer. People on the Mr. Beer discussion forum seem to agree that it is better to follow a 2 - 2 - 2 pattern. That means two weeks to ferment, two weeks to carbonate, and two weeks to condition. The forum entries say that is the minimum, and for higher fermentable sugars (more alcohol) you should ferment longer and usually condition longer. So, I am not following the wisdom of the masses, but I think it will be OK for my Classic American Blond Ale, which is very low in alcohol. I am following exactly what the instructions said to do for this one.

I will start following the 2 - 2 - 2 for my next batch. 6 weeks!!! Man, it takes patience to brew beer!

So, now that I got my first shipment, I am going to start brewing batch #2. I have decided to try a recipe from the Mr. Beer site called 1776 Ale. It is a hoppy, amber beer with a modest bitterness (IBU 11) and an alcohol by volume of 6%. My guess is it is going to be sort of similar to a Sam Adams Boston Lager or maybe a Breckenridge Brewery Avalanche, but I do not really know. The recipe includes the hopped malt extract "Cowboy Golden Lager", and a "Booster", both of which I already had from my original kit. It also calls for an unhopped malt extract "Mellow Amber" and some extra hops both of which were in my shipment.

My shipment also came with another hopped malt extract and unhopped extract for which I have a plan. I may or may not describe this brew on the blog once I start brewing it.

I really want to get it all going. I want to know how they all taste now. The hardest part of brewing your own beer is the waiting. Of course, right now, I do not even have enough bottles to bottle any more. By the time I am ready to bottle batch #2, I will though. Shipment #2 includes another set of the PET bottles , and of course more beer ingredients.